Is it possible to make instruments sound natural through audio editing like this?

[Ryan Elder]

Oh well, am not a post production sound mixer so I thought it was best to hire someone else for it. I gave him all the room tone and sound effects. I could have more sound effects for next time if that's better.

The sound mixer could only work on it at certain times, but those times were during my day job, so I left him to it. Should I be there while the sound mixer is working?

But I thought it was said before that doing this is micromanaging if I stick around the whole process. So is it then? Yes the composer did have a copy of the movie to work with.

Actually the composer brought something interesting to my intention. A couple of the sounds I said I wanted in a couple of clips are the contrabass instruments and the concert bass drum. But he says that most people will not hear those instruments because they are inaudible on most people's speakers, since they watch movies on their computers and cell phone speakers. Is that true though, that it's not worth having low bass instruments because most people will not be able to hear them though?

[Paul R Johnson]

Ryan. This is what happens when you make your decisions based on shaky rules in your book. This is not the place to teach you about sound recording. Most studios since the 70s have two sets of loudspeakers. One full range and often very expensive, and another pair more similar to cheap hifi speakers. You mix on the full range, and check on the cheap ones. If you mix on the cheap ones it often sounds wrong on the others.

Your bass flute may well go unheard on phones. This is what happens when film makers spend time and money on things that onl6 theatrical release reveals, or people at home with decent sound systems. However, just because the folk at home throw your efforts away on small displays with weedy sound it’s not something you should change because a phone sound product means it’s flawed. Strive for the best you can, but remember the idiots, and what they’ll be missing.

Most people watching your videos do NOT have a calibrated colour monitor. You spend all this time on your grading and a few get what you want. Most have their tv saturation turned up far too much, but don’t know or care.

You gave your sound man room tone? You mean you got him to add IN what we heard? Surely not? In my studio, now with my new spectral layers I’d be getting rid of the air con, not adding it.

Are you sure you understood room sound when you gave it to him. Clearly it went very wrong because we noticed it.

[Brian Drysdale]

During the sound mix, the junk loudspeaker is handy for checking what people won't hear.

I made a drama that was going be put onto 16mm optical sound. It was a pretty complex sound track and the mixer and I had to be careful about how it was going to sound on optical sound. It worked out pretty well, although it was case of the sound sounding better on the video and pictures looking better on the 16mm print.

[Ryan Elder]

Originally Posted by Paul R Johnson

Ryan. This is what happens when you make your decisions based on shaky rules in your book. This is not the place to teach you about sound recording. Most studios since the 70s have two sets of loudspeakers. One full range and often very expensive, and another pair more similar to cheap hifi speakers. You mix on the full range, and check on the cheap ones. If you mix on the cheap ones it often sounds wrong on the others.

Your bass flute may well go unheard on phones. This is what happens when film makers spend time and money on things that onl6 theatrical release reveals, or people at home with decent sound systems. However, just because the folk at home throw your efforts away on small displays with weedy sound it’s not something you should change because a phone sound product means it’s flawed. Strive for the best you can, but remember the idiots, and what they’ll be missing.

Most people watching your videos do NOT have a calibrated colour monitor. You spend all this time on your grading and a few get what you want. Most have their tv saturation turned up far too much, but don’t know or care.

You gave your sound man room tone? You mean you got him to add IN what we heard? Surely not? In my studio, now with my new spectral layers I’d be getting rid of the air con, not adding it.

Are you sure you understood room sound when you gave it to him. Clearly it went very wrong because we noticed it.

Oh okay thanks for the advice there on the mixing and music. What I did with the sound mixer, is he asked for all the sounds on all the channels to be put on an OMF container.

When I shot the movie, I recorded a minute of room tone for each scene and then put those layers of room tone, under their scenes on the editing timeline. I then exported it all in an OMF container for the sound mixer to mix. Should I not have given him the room tone then, or should I not have put the room tone on the timeline?

[Brian Drysdale]

You should put the room tones and the effects etc in the appropriate time audio tracks, OMF is an interchange file format.

[Ryan Elder]

Okay thanks. That's what I did. But maybe the sound mixer did not mix them the right way then maybe after?

[Paul R Johnson]

When the clips already have an excess of background noise, as they appear to have - he cannot mix more in, so room tone - which is used to cover the absence of recorded sound, is no help is it!

If people want files as OMF, or just as wavs, flags, aifs or even mp3s - it's no big deal. I suspect something went a bit adrift with the audio editing and mixing stage. One common trick with room noise intrusion when you do have a room sound track, is to pop a gate on the audio so when they finish speaking, it quickly mutes, but have the room tone sound running in the background - so the gaps between words are filled with the constant, correct sound, to hide the silence. I'm surprised he didn't try this if he had the room tone tracks?

[Ryan Elder]

Oh okay thanks, but I thought he did do this, because isn't the room tone track running constantly during the dialogue, or no?

[Paul R Johnson]

The room noise changes with each change of camera angle - the louder aircon in one shot suddenly going quieter which reveals the fact that the sound track is chopped up, and not continuous. Kind of give a subliminal lurch each time - normally you would not have this audible.

[Ryan Elder]

I can tell that and I know what you mean. I guess this was a choice on the post production mixer then. I gave him all the audio clips and he had a minute of room tone to work with, when blending from one scene to another, so maybe it's just the way he mixed it then?

[Paul R Johnson]

I just don't know Ryan - it's not right, whatever the reason. Odd it was left like that?

[Josh Bass]

I get the feeling Ryan either cannot afford good people or doenst know how to evaluate the skills of these folks, probably both.

[Ryan Elder]

Yeah I know it's not right. But this is what I mean, in how I want to work closer with people in post for next time, and have much more specific requests. But it was said before if I do that then that's micromanaging. So what can I do to make sure things are being done well such as sound and music, since I was told it was odd before? If I cannot supervise the process, because it's micromanaging, then what can I do?

[Greg Miller]

It seems to me that we have covered ... and re-covered ... a lot of basics here. Every so often a specific question pops into my head. Ryan has told us more than once that he took a film course (or courses). This makes me wonder about what specific classes he took and what was (or was not) covered.

Also, speaking of questions, and given the badness of that mix, I can't help wondering what experience the sound mixer had, and what communications went on between him and Ryan. e.g. the mixer might have known better than to do what he did, but maybe some miscommunication he thought he was following Ryan's peculiar instructions.

[Ryan Elder]

I didn't give him any specific instructions on what to do with the room tone and music volume. I just said I wanted it to sound like a movie more so, but should I give specifics on room tone and volume, or just leave it up to them?

What I took in film school was mostly on producing and directing specifically, but not much audio. I guess I just find some of the basics to be contradictory or paradoxical because I am told not to supervise or make a lot of decision in the process, because that is micromanaging, and they know more than I do, but at the same time, if you leave them to it, you don't want know what is going to come out in the end when it comes to sound mixing, or music, etc.

The advice in the past was to leave them along and do not work with them and the music and sound will turn out better than I would think. I was just posting a short film example, of how I was not satisfied with the music and sound, after it was finished, after I had left them to it. So I feel the advice is not working for me so far, and maybe another approach is better?